Survey on Food Ethics

Though we don't do quant around here, have a look how the figures coming out of a new BMRB survey on UK consumer attitudes to 'ethical' shopping have been reported. Interesting that the Observer only focuses on those who DON'T care about consumer ethics - 'most Britons do not care where the food and vegetables they buy come from' - when there's surely a the flipside to the 61% who don't, ie a not unconsiderable 39% who do. And isn't a figure of almost half of the UK population who think that Britain should import less food to limit environmental damage even if this leads to less variety and higher prices astonishingly high and more interesting to focus on than the 52% who reject this idea? Especially considering that worrying about food ethics is a bit of a luxury and that we can assume that at least some in the 'don't care' camp may have other concerns like making ends meet! In the business section of the paper is an article on supermarkets starting to roll out box schemes, so far the preserve of independents, surely another sign that food ethics have made enough of a breakthrough to make business sense. As far as reporting on the survey is concerned, it just goes to show again how quant figures need interpreting and can be used for any agenda rather than being the 'objective truth' for which they seem to be sometimes mistaken...